River Crossing
by moonlunes
Summary: Wil/Rath, genderbent, can be shippy or gen. AU based on Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge.- There is no reasoning behind her attendance at the Floating School.


Setting notes: Mandelion is the capital of a polytheistic realm based on Victorian England. People are given names based on what deity's time they were born under-"Willard" was born at the time of Goodman Pipshriek, protector of the rash, and although I didn't make note of it in the story, since "Rasa" means something like "dew" I imagine she was named for the deity responsible for morning dew. (Said deity is not named in the book, because there are _tons of deities_ and the author would be crazy to mention every one of them, so I'm just assuming it exists.) (PS. Lucius didn't need a namechange because he was totally named for Goodman Boniface of the Sun. Canas didn't get one because what even sounds like Canas. What does Canas even mean.) Books are heavily regulated by the Stationers Guild, and anything written that is not given their seal is considered immediately treasonous and, going by the common reactions in the book, practically a form of witchcraft. Gypsies show up and are mentioned, but are not especially expanded on, so I took some liberties there.

Rasa had been introduced to the secret school by a girl named Will-in her words, "named Willard because my parents just had this _gut_ feeling I was going to be a boy born under Pipshriek, and they got the time right but not the gender, how silly is _that_? So I go by Will, since that's less weird for a girl, right?"-when she was at the very edge end of her childhood. Because she was the only gypsy in the class, whenever a new student would be ushered in at the start of a new gathering, the student would stare at her sunned skin and patterned vests, often still too young to attempt the city folks' manners and subtlety. She towered over all the girls among them and nearly every boy, and since gypsies didn't all too often enter Mandelion so decisively as she would, she was, to be blunt, a very indiscreet addition to the children weaving through the crowd towards their meeting places or scattering from them after an alarm was sounded.

So she wasn't really sure why Will invited her to begin with. The gypsies carried their stories with their voices, and voices took no heed of any Guild's seal, so Rasa's head was not nearly so hungry as the story-starved Mandelion children's; thus, she was sure there was no especially curious look to her for anyone to pick up on, certainly not dense, uncertain Will. Despite Will's stranger traits-like her chatty nature and the way she moved heedless of her skirts, so they billowed and fluffed and flattened like drunken clouds-she was too friendly to be friendless, and she had no loneliness to bring them together. It was possible that Will had seen other gypsy girls, who were often so tittery and lively, and thought Rasa out of place and alone beside them, but really, Rasa suspected Will just went and introduced everyone whom she trusted would keep the school under wraps and teacher Canas from being jailed for treason.

(In Rasa's opinion, Will trusted too easily. Rasa herself may have held no ill intent, but Will would need to one day learn that keeping closed lips and keeping secrets were not one and the same.)

In truth, there was no reasoning that compelled her to stay with the school. For the most part, they would transcribe the words from the book Canas would read aloud to them; having had learned letters later in life than most of the students and having been more used to pictures scratched or stitched, Rasa's handwriting was angular at best, and looked like small, inky slashes when she'd rush her slow fingers to keep pace with his voice. Although some students' books-like Lucius's precise, looping script the other children all spoke of with hushed envy, and likely even Will's rapid, wide-spaced slant-might be placed on rebels' shelves later on, her scrawl was too illegible to contribute to their spread. As a gypsy, living across the river and outside the Stationers' iron grip, she couldn't relate to the revolutionary words against the current government; on the other hand, she knew all too well the horrors of the Birdcatchers' time, the same as every soul in the Shattered Realm knew all too well, but saw no necessity in tearing down the ideals of an era already overthrown.

It was a good exercise for the children of Mandelion. But Rasa was a child of the Slye.

As such, it was the Slye she left from each time she went to meet with the other children, and as such it was the Slye she returned to after each meeting's end. Once, she felt an odd prickling at the back of her neck, and only realized it was because she was being followed when she was past halfway across a bridge of shop boats stocked with questionable goods and Will was screaming as she fell into the Slye a little ways behind.

It had taken some commotion and a bit of disruptive boat-hopping to get back to her and fish her out of the water, and Will was understandably sheepish and shaken even after she was sat on dry land to wring out her bonnet-freed copper hair, her once airy skirts slumped and clinging to her crossed legs and Rasa beside her, observing.

"My mother," she said, laughingly, nervously, "is going to have my hide for this." The hat had already sunk, and would be beyond repair even if it were retrieved, but Rasa suspected Will's statement had less to do with her ruined clothes and more to do with the odd wares she kept casting nervous glances at. "Are those guns-"

"Once you hit the river, the land is no longer Stationers' land. Their rules are not law here." Will's eyes went a little wide and her mouth made an 'o', though it was a face less like "oh, I see," and more like "oh, you spoke, I near forgot you do that."

"Well, there must still be rules, right? I mean, doesn't the Watermen's Guild watch over the river?"

"Yes... The rules are different." Will made a funny face, then, the way she often did when Rasa said two or three sentences at a time, like she wanted to smile but thought it would be silly if she did.

"Different how? I mean, I'm sure you still have to have stamped papers and what; that seems like something the entire Realm's bent to do. So... is it just all this stuff that's allowed here and isn't there?" It was a complicated question, and not one Rasa had paid enough notice to for her to answer-the Slye was lax on laws at best, for what ones they had, and the only real enforcement she'd seen were to limit passengers to particular barges and to keep other Guilds from exercising power over the river-so she drew her tongue back and stood instead, offering a hand to pull Will up after her. "Oh. I should get back, huh? Right, might as well get those lashings over with." The edges of Rasa's mouth twitched a bit, in spite of herself, at Will's melodrama, and then just a little higher into a real smile when Will practically lunged at her over it. She couldn't help but let out a huff of laughter at Will's face, which was nearly split in two and looked tempted to reach out and grab her and shake her or hug her, anything close to the sort, and couldn't decide whether she was glad for the Mandelion etiquette that kept Will from doing so or disappointed by it.

(She had no reasoning, but she went back anyways, because maybe a reason doesn't need reasoning and maybe she'd been lonely, after all, if only in comparison.)


End file.
